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Running into 2011

November 18, 2010 By

2010 did not start off well for me, especially from a running perspective.  As I rang in the New Year with Gerard, I was high on Percocet that was barely making a dent in the pain I was in.  Two days previously, a chiropractic adjustment had gone horribly wrong, and damaged a bundle of nerves in my neck and going all the way down my left arm. For the next six weeks or so, I was in unspeakable pain.  The next few weeks were a blur of doctor’s visits, emergency room visits, nights of crying myself to sleep in agony, and many, many drugs. A series of physiotherapy appointments gradually got me back on my feet, and almost three months after the original injury, I was finally allowed to try running again.

The first post-injury run did not go well. I was only able to run for about one kilometre, and it took more than eight minutes.  I kept getting shooting pains going up and down my left arm and I had to keep stopping for walk breaks. The following day I needed about an hour of intense physiotherapy. But I was officially on the road again. I had graduated from injury status to rehabilitation status. My next run two days later was a lot better, and from that point on, the improvement was exponential.  Still, it would be several months before I could say that my rehabilitation was complete.  Even now, I get the occasional twinge in my arm, which I am trying to resolve with the help of a sports massage therapist.

Despite the rough start to the year and the hammering that my average pace took as a result, I ended up having a busy running season. Here is a list of the races I took part in:
– Early April: 10km waterfront race in Pickering. It went OK, especially considering that this was just two weeks after I had started running again.
– Early May: Sporting Life 10K down Yonge Street. I enjoyed this event and I was happy with my time of 1:05:00. Sadly, though, when I got home from the race I got word that my friend and fellow writer Tim had lost his battle with cancer.
– Late May: Whitby half-marathon. Despite some pre-race concerns about the organization of this event, it went really well. Gerard and the kids, along with some extended family, were cheering for me at the finish line.  My time was just over 2:25:00. This was just over two months after my first post-injury run – I was thrilled just to be able to finish a race of that distance.
– Mid-July: Acura Ten-Miler in the Distillery District. The less said about this, the better. It was not my finest moment. Life had gotten in the way of training, the course was mentally challenging and offered almost no shelter from the midsummer sun, and I pulled a hamstring. I finished the race in less than two hours, which is a miracle considering all that was wrong that day.
– Late September: the main event – my 2010 Run for Autism, the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Half-Marathon. I cannot put into words the emotional high I was on when I crossed the finish line. It was phenomenal.  I managed a negative split, and beat my time from the previous year by a full six minutes.
– Mid-October: 10km zoo run. I did this race purely for the fun of it.  I had no expectations whatsoever.  I had an absolute blast and got a respectable enough time of 1:06:00 to boot.

All in all, not a bad year.  I put in almost 90km in races, and hundreds more in training.  I overcame a debilitating injury that I had at one point feared would sideline me for good, and I am looking forward to another great season in 2011.

So what does next year’s race calendar have in store for me?  I will start with the Resolution Run on New Years Day – just a fun 5km event that’s not even officially timed, but that does throw in a nice running jacket with the race kit. After that, I’m thinking of doing an 8km race in High Park in early April.  There are lots of hills in High Park, and they’re big hills.  It will be a tough run, but it will force me to be disciplined about hill training.

I have to give the Sporting Life 10K a miss because it’s happening the day after I get married.  I don’t think my new husband will be too pleased if I jump out of bed to go to a race at six in the morning.

At the end of May I will be running the Toronto Women’s Half-Marathon. They have a chocolate station and a water station manned by hunky shirtless firefighters.  I will be a married woman by then, but I am still a woman.  And chocolate is chocolate and shirtless firefighters are nice eye candy.

I’ll skip the Acura Ten-Miler, because my experience with it last year was enough to put a huge mental block to it in my head.  I am thinking about the Midsummer Night’s Run 15K instead, but that follows most of the same route.  I may have to figure out a summer race later on.  I may even have to find one I need to travel to.

At the end of September I will do the 10K zoo run again.  I had way too much fun to even consider missing that.  And then, in October, it will be time for my 2011 Run for Autism.  I have big plans for that – to break two hours.  That will mean chopping at least 22 minutes off of this year’s time, and that’s a massive chunk.  But I am nothing if not ambitious, and assuming I don’t start the year with an injury, I think it might be possible.  Especially since I am doing it for my boys.

There is no time for slacking.  Right after the Resolution Run on January 1st, I will be diving straight back into training mode.

Filed Under: Medical, running Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
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All We Need Is A Reason

November 17, 2010 By

This morning I woke up early and went to the gym for a rare run on the treadmill.  As a general rule, I am not fond of treadmill running.  It makes me feel a bit like a lab rat, or a hamster running in one of those little wheels.  You never actually go anywhere. You don’t feel the freedom of the open road.  It all seems a little pointless, like tofu or decaffeinated coffee.

On the odd occasion, though, a treadmill workout is better than a road run. This can be true from a circumstantial point of view (you’ve woken up with sore knees and you need to run on a surface with some give; you’re tired and cannot be bothered to map out a route; the weather outside is frightful and you cannot find your balaclava or your will power).  A treadmill run can also be beneficial from a training perspective, especially during the winter.  It can be kind of difficult to do a tempo run or speed reps outside when it’s snowing and there’s a gusty wind blowing.  Far better to head to the gym where you can focus on maintaining 5:30 minutes per kilometre without stressing about snow, wind, ice on the sidewalks, or the fact that it’s dark and you look like a burglar.

So anyway, I went for my treadmill run and worked up a good sweat.  I had some anxiety to work out of my system, so I really belted it, clocking 5km in 24 minutes. Feeling a lot better and pleasantly loosened up, I returned home, where everyone was still asleep.  Before taking a shower, I checked on my boys.  At some point during my absence, George had crawled into bed beside his little brother, and the two of them were sleeping peacefully, James clutching his stuffed giraffe, George with arm over James’ shoulders.  It was one of those moments that reminds me of why I love being a mother, and why, in fact, I was running on the treadmill at such an ungodly hour in the first place.

It is so weird to think that two years ago, I could barely run around the block. I had been bitten by the running bug previously, of course, but after seven years of no exercise my lifestyle was decidedly sedentery. I was decidedly unhealthy, and my clothing was decidedly tight.  I had tried, over the years, to make comebacks to the world of running, but there was always something that stopped me. Injury, illness, lack of time. When it came down to it, though, all I lacked was the right motivation.  When I got that email from the Geneva Centre for Autism back in April 2009, inviting me to join their team for the upcoming marathon/half-marathon/5km Charity Challenge, I knew instantly that I had finally found a reason to get with the program, and to stick with the program.

Initially I considered the 5km event.  After all, I hadn’t run in seven years and I was about seventy pounds overweight. And the event was just six months away. But the little voice in my head that never shuts up until it gets its own way piped up and chanted, “Half-marathon! Half-marathon! Half-marathon!” And before I knew it, I had clicked on the link in the email and signed up for the half-marathon. Six months later, I stood at the finish line somewhat stunned by the fact that in just half a year I had shed sixty pounds, gotten myself into some semblance of “shape”, and completed a half-marathon.

A year further down the line, I have run several races and two more half-marathons.  Another two are planned for 2011, and my comeback to running is now firmly established.  All thanks to those two little boys who were snuggled up together this morning, sleeping beside each other, making me feel like the richest person on the entire planet.

Have you ever done something that you thought would be beyond your limits?  What motivated you, and what helped keep you going when things got tough?

(P.S. My first post for World Moms Blog was published today.  Check it out:
http://worldmomsblog.com/2010/11/17/little-brother-big-hero/)

Filed Under: autism, Children, family, fundraising, parenting, running, Siblings Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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The makings of a social runner

November 15, 2010 By

As of yesterday morning, I am an official paid-up member of the Rouge River Roadrunners.  Joining a running club is quite a big departure from my former way of thinking, simply because it means that my long Sunday runs will no longer be solo ventures.  I used to do all of my running alone, primarily by choice.  I liked the idea of mapping out my own routes, getting to run to the beat of music in my ears, and being beholden to no-one but myself on my runs.  After all, half the point of running was to get out and be by myself for a change.

So what happened?  How did I evolve into this being who actually craves company on runs?  I mean, I like my solitude, and I get so little of it.  I have a little bit of social awkwardness.  It is not easy for me to meet and get to know new people, and conversation does not come naturally to me – not unless I know the person I am conversing with very well.  It seems kind of weird that I, of all people, would turn into somebody who needed a group of people to run with.

The metamorphosis started maybe six months ago, when I was training for my 2010 Run for Autism.  Since I was on the organizing committee for the Geneva Centre for Autism, I befriended some of the people there and we created an informal running group.  We started meeting up for a run every Wednesday after work, and I found myself thoroughly enjoying the company.  I felt that I had struck a nice balance between running alone and running with a group.

Shortly before the half-marathon, I found that my Sunday long runs were getting a little stale.   I was varying my routes a little bit, but I was sticking to the same general neighbourhoods, and I was getting bored.  I found myself hitting a plateau.  My fitness and endurance levels were definitely improving, but I wasn’t really making great gains on my average pace.  All runs longer than about twelve kilometres were starting to feel a bit tedious, and I started incorporating as many twists and turns in my routes as I could, just for the sake of variety.

About a month ago, I was wasting time on the Internet late at night when I couldn’t sleep, and purely by accident I came across a website for the Rouge River Roadrunners.  I had never heard of this group before, and the name suggested that they might be local.  I looked up their contact information, and sure enough, their meeting spot turned out to be a community centre less than five minutes’  drive from where I live.  Before I really knew what I was doing, I sent an email off to the primary contact, asking for more information.

Several emails and a couple of phonecalls later, I agreed to meet the group for one of their Sunday runs.  When I arrived and started talking to the other runners, I started getting very nervous.  All of them – bar none – are experienced marathoners who have been running for at least fifteen years (without a great big gaping seven-year gap in the middle like I had).  They are fitter than me, they are faster, they have run more races.  To me, a 10km run is a decent distance.  To them, it’s a walk in the park.

Was I going to keep up with these people?  I had my doubts, especially when we started out at a pace slightly faster than what I am used to.  Since I would rather set my face on fire than admit that these runners might be too fast for me, I kept pace with them from the beginning.  When we’d been going for about half a kilometre, the man running next to me (who is almost 70 and in the kind of shape I was in when I was 25) asked me about my last race.

Cripes.  Not only was I running faster than usual for a long run, now I had to talk while I was doing it?  Whoever said that it costs nothing to be polite was lying.  Being polite can cost you your breath if you’re doing it while running with a bunch of gazelles.  But I didn’t exactly have a choice.  I was raised in a nice home and taught to be courteous no matter what.  I briefly considered the “no matter what”  part of the equation, and then answered my fellow runner’s questions.  To my complete surprise, my answer came out sounding normal. I didn’t sound as if I was about to pass out.  I sounded like someone having a normal conversation.

We continued chatting, and about half an hour later I realized to my astonishment that not only was I keeping up with these people, I was actually feeling OK.   I was not fighting for breath. My legs did not feel as if they were about to fall off.  I did not feel like a walrus among gazelles.

We finished the run, and fuelled by a feeling of accomplishment, I joined the other runners for a post-run coffee and then promised to join them again the following week.  That happened to be yesterday – a somewhat grey, somewhat rainy, somewhat windy day.  We met in the designated spot, and as we hopped around trying to stay warm, we debated where and how far we would run.  One of the runners cheerfully said, “Let’s find a route with lots of hills!”  Imagine my relief when someone else said that she had done hills the previous day and needed a flat route.  She suggested a route along the waterfront trail.  The rest of us agreed, and we set off.

Three kilometres later, I was thinking to myself, “Yikes!  This is flat???”  We were going up and down hills as if we were a bunch of yo-yo’s on steroids.  I was keeping pace, but this time I was not talking, and my legs were starting to burn.  I did what I always do when the running gets tough: I started to count.  Not out loud, of course.  Silently, in my head.  It’s a little trick I have that seems to get me through those little running bumps.  I count in time to my steps.  Sure enough, after about three minutes of this I found myself settling into a rhythm and enjoying myself.

This run was definitely harder than last week’s, but I kept pace with the other runners and finished feeling good.  And I realized that I had made a discovery: on all of those solo long runs that I did before, I underestimated myself and held back.  I am actually a much better runner than I have been giving myself credit for.  I needed to start running with a group of experienced runners in order to push myself and see what I was capable of.  This journey of discovery is only just beginning.

So although I still run solo once or twice a week, I am not getting as much time alone as I used to.  I am, however, getting time with a new group of friends with a common interest, and that is almost as good.  Probably better, in fact.  I just know that this will turn me into a better runner.

Good enough to aim for sub-2 hours in my next half-marathon?  Time will tell.

Filed Under: Friendship, running, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , ,
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Rude awakenings

November 12, 2010 By

Yesterday, my day got off to a bad start. There had been a power cut at some point during the night, so my alarm got reset.  Which just proves that those old-fashioned alarm clocks with the annoyingly loud tick-tock sounds have merit. Anyway, what it meant was that I didn’t get up at five in the morning to go running. Instead, I woke with a jolt and discovered that it was 7:20 – roughly the time that I am usually getting onto the bus to get to work. I flew out of bed, frantically put on my clothes, attacked my head with a hairbrush, and randomly jabbed eyeliner and mascara in the general direction of my face.

I like adrenaline as much as the next person, but I don’t like a massive jolt of it first thing in the morning. As hard as it was for me, though, it was probably worse for James. Usually I wake him gently and slowly, and give him time to ease into the day before getting him up and dressed. This time, I went into his room, shook him gently by the shoulder, and hissed, “James! It’s time to wake up!” With that, I thrust his morning cup of milk into his hands and started shoving his arms and legs into his clothes before he’d even opened his eyes.  The poor kid was startled into compliance. Five minutes after he woke up, I was hustling him to the front door to get his socks and shoes on.  He started protesting, “Mommeeeeeeee! I want to sleep!”

I knew the feeling. Both of us went out into the world grumpy and barely awake, with our bodies quivering with misplaced adrenaline. It was not a great way to start the morning, but both of us got to where we needed to be, albeit somewhat later than usual.

My day didn’t really get into a groove, though. I felt displaced and dysfunctional, scattered and kind of agitated. I was the human version of a radio tuned to static, where nothing is clear or focused, and you expend all of your energy just trying to make sense of the noise.  I was glad when the day was done.

So far, today is going a lot better. I didn’t wake up in time to go running, but I got to work on time, without giving my child a rude awakening in the process. This evening after work, I will go for my run, and then settle into what will hopefully be a good weekend.

Filed Under: life Tagged With: , , ,
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Creating order out of chaos

November 9, 2010 By

I have realized that in order to make my life less overwhelming, I need to clean house. Literally and metaphorically. I need to clear away some clutter, change some things, make things more organized, rearrange the way I do things.  All of this is causing some pretty intense anxiety.  I look around me at all of the things I need to change in order to make my life – well, livable – and the overriding thought in my head is, “Where the eff do I start???”  Just looking at the chaos that is my life makes my palms go sweaty and my heart rate increase. Fight or flight.  No wonder I want to run all time.

Part of the problem, of course, is not having the time to do just that.  To be honest, that’s really what most of this drive to change my life is about.  I want to have time to run without having to pick between that and sleep. Everything else kind of works out. I come to work, groceries get purchased, bills get paid (sometimes late, admittedly, but not very), homework gets supervised. When I run out of hours in the day, one of two things gets sacrificed: sleep or running.  I need both like I need oxygen, so I cannot do this anymore.  I have to get my life together so that I’m not making such ridiculous choices.

So I’ve decided to make a list. First to be sorted out, simply because it’s easiest, will be my physical space. My desks both at home and at work are far more chaotic than they need to be.  Part of it is that I am (I admit it) a naturally disorganized person.  Part of it is my fear of throwing anything out.  Hey, you never know! Someday I might need that piece of paper with squiggles drawn on it!  I’m going to be ruthless.  If I don’t need it, it goes. If I do need it, it gets put away somewhere instead of cluttering up my desk.

Then I will get up to date with bills.  I’m not really behind on this, but I have a small pile of stuff that needs to be paid. I will get it done and file those bills away. One thing I do have going for me is an organized filing system. Any forms that need to be filled in and signed, the photo order for George’s school pictures, the invoices to be completed so I can get my respite funding cheques.  All of the admin that needs to be done will be done.

I have one more year of bookkeeping to do for Gerard’s business, and one year for the non-profit studio.  That will be done. I have set up a quick and easy system for doing this. It will take less than two hours in total. Then our taxes will be officially caught up and all I will have to do is stay current.

I will file away all of the receipts that have been recorded by my friend’s daughter (a real life-saver, that girl – thanks, Megan!).  I will gather together the receipts that need to be done and give them to her. I will come up with a better way of filing the receipts once they have been entered in the spreadsheet.

Starting tonight, I will be going to bed no later than 10:30.  That is a hard target, a set-in-stone rule that only a sick or distressed child will have the power to break. That means that when I wake up at five thirty tomorrow morning, I will have the energy to actually get out of bed and go for a run.

I will work on my daily routines, and find ways to use my time more effectively.  If that means using time timers and putting whiteboard schedules on the wall, so be it. I am even going to take the plunge and find a therapist. This is really something I should have done a long time ago. A few years ago, I went through a number of major life changes in a short period of time. In the space of eighteen months, I stopped working, my Dad died, my younger son was born, and I was hit with George’s autism diagnosis. With all of that plus some pretty intense post-partum depression, it’s no wonder my mind got a little scrambled and overwhelmed. I did see a doctor who put me on antidepressants, but that did not work for me.  The depression and anxiety were replaced by anger, and that didn’t help anyone.

I’m not in as bad a shape as I was in back then.  In fact, I’m pretty happy with the big picture of my life right now. But still. I could use a little help, and I’m going to seek it out.  Just about everyone I know is in therapy – if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!

As for the running, that will get better too.  I have discovered a running club in my neighbourhood, and this past Sunday I went out running with them.  I had a great time, and thoroughly enjoyed meeting real-life people (as opposed to Internet people) who share a common interest with me. My plan will be to go for Sunday long runs with them, which means I will have to do my midweek runs to keep up my fitness so I can keep up with them!

So, a lot is going to be changing in my life.  And that’s not even counting the fact that I’ll be getting married in a few months!

Filed Under: life Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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Creating order out of chaos

November 9, 2010 By

I have realized that in order to make my life less overwhelming, I need to clean house. Literally and metaphorically. I need to clear away some clutter, change some things, make things more organized, rearrange the way I do things.  All of this is causing some pretty intense anxiety.  I look around me at all of the things I need to change in order to make my life – well, livable – and the overriding thought in my head is, “Where the eff do I start???”  Just looking at the chaos that is my life makes my palms go sweaty and my heart rate increase. Fight or flight.  No wonder I want to run all time.

Part of the problem, of course, is not having the time to do just that.  To be honest, that’s really what most of this drive to change my life is about.  I want to have time to run without having to pick between that and sleep. Everything else kind of works out. I come to work, groceries get purchased, bills get paid (sometimes late, admittedly, but not very), homework gets supervised. When I run out of hours in the day, one of two things gets sacrificed: sleep or running.  I need both like I need oxygen, so I cannot do this anymore.  I have to get my life together so that I’m not making such ridiculous choices.

So I’ve decided to make a list. First to be sorted out, simply because it’s easiest, will be my physical space. My desks both at home and at work are far more chaotic than they need to be.  Part of it is that I am (I admit it) a naturally disorganized person.  Part of it is my fear of throwing anything out.  Hey, you never know! Someday I might need that piece of paper with squiggles drawn on it!  I’m going to be ruthless.  If I don’t need it, it goes. If I do need it, it gets put away somewhere instead of cluttering up my desk.

Then I will get up to date with bills.  I’m not really behind on this, but I have a small pile of stuff that needs to be paid. I will get it done and file those bills away. One thing I do have going for me is an organized filing system. Any forms that need to be filled in and signed, the photo order for George’s school pictures, the invoices to be completed so I can get my respite funding cheques.  All of the admin that needs to be done will be done.

I have one more year of bookkeeping to do for Gerard’s business, and one year for the non-profit studio.  That will be done. I have set up a quick and easy system for doing this. It will take less than two hours in total. Then our taxes will be officially caught up and all I will have to do is stay current.

I will file away all of the receipts that have been recorded by my friend’s daughter (a real life-saver, that girl – thanks, Megan!).  I will gather together the receipts that need to be done and give them to her. I will come up with a better way of filing the receipts once they have been entered in the spreadsheet.

Starting tonight, I will be going to bed no later than 10:30.  That is a hard target, a set-in-stone rule that only a sick or distressed child will have the power to break. That means that when I wake up at five thirty tomorrow morning, I will have the energy to actually get out of bed and go for a run.

I will work on my daily routines, and find ways to use my time more effectively.  If that means using time timers and putting whiteboard schedules on the wall, so be it. I am even going to take the plunge and find a therapist. This is really something I should have done a long time ago. A few years ago, I went through a number of major life changes in a short period of time. In the space of eighteen months, I stopped working, my Dad died, my younger son was born, and I was hit with George’s autism diagnosis. With all of that plus some pretty intense post-partum depression, it’s no wonder my mind got a little scrambled and overwhelmed. I did see a doctor who put me on antidepressants, but that did not work for me.  The depression and anxiety were replaced by anger, and that didn’t help anyone.

I’m not in as bad a shape as I was in back then.  In fact, I’m pretty happy with the big picture of my life right now. But still. I could use a little help, and I’m going to seek it out.  Just about everyone I know is in therapy – if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!

As for the running, that will get better too.  I have discovered a running club in my neighbourhood, and this past Sunday I went out running with them.  I had a great time, and thoroughly enjoyed meeting real-life people (as opposed to Internet people) who share a common interest with me. My plan will be to go for Sunday long runs with them, which means I will have to do my midweek runs to keep up my fitness so I can keep up with them!

So, a lot is going to be changing in my life.  And that’s not even counting the fact that I’ll be getting married in a few months!

Filed Under: life Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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From pumpkins to fishermen

November 2, 2010 By

When I went running early on Sunday morning, I was startled to see a pumpkin rolling right into my path. I was perhaps more surprised than I should have been: this was, after all, the morning of Halloween. But still, when it’s six thirty in the morning and you’re running at an even pace along an open sidewalk, you don’t expect to see a large pumpkin rolling down some steps and coming to rest at your feet, with its carved face grinning up at you in a manner that can only be described as macabre.

The pumpkin was followed by a large dog, who I think had knocked it off the steps. Still, it was an interesting way to start my Halloween. It threw my run off a bit, because I was now expecting to have to dodge pumpkins every thirty seconds. Fortunately, I made it home in one piece, without further incident, and ahead of the virtual partner on my Garmin training watch.

That evening, after a day of James asking every fifteen seconds whether it was trick-or-treat time yet, we got the kids all dressed up in their glad rags. James had spent the whole of October changing his mind about what he wanted to be. He flip-flopped between Lightning McQueen, Batman, a Transformer and a frog before settling on Ironman. I don’t know who Ironman is or what his special powers are, but James says he’s cool, and really, who am I to argue?  It’s not like I’m an authority on the subject.

I wish I was one of those Moms who can conjure up a convincing costume from scraps of material in the house, but I’m not. I’m one of those Moms who could probably be beaten in a sewing contest by a one-year-old, so I went to Toys R Us and managed to get the last Ironman costume they had in stock. Never mind that it was two sizes too big for James. I put him into the costume, tightened the elastic on the mask, and he looked great. Very Ironman-like.

George was a bit more of a challenge. I have never really known what to do for him for Halloween, because he doesn’t wear costumes. He has pretty intense sensory issues where his clothing is concerned, and he is super-picky about everyday clothes, never mind the weird Halloween stuff with masks and capes and stuff. His costumes have to approximate real-life clothing as closely as possible.

Something that worked in our favour this year is George’s obsession with wearing hats. Not baseball caps, but what I used to call “old man hats”. I put a life jacket on him, gave him a fishing rod, and called him a fisherman. Using cardboard, I made a giant colourful fish with a goofy grin, and I attached it to the end of the line.

Both costumes were a hit. For the first time ever, George actively enjoyed the trick-or-treating. He wore a giant grin that showed off the gaps in his teeth to perfection. James was in charge of ringing doorbells. Both kids collected a scary amount of candy that will last from now until Christmas.

Because of George’s challenges, Halloween has always been a day fraught with anxiety, probably more for me than for George. This year was different. Everyone had fun, and we all went to bed exhausted, but relaxed and happy.

Filed Under: Children Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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I Am Canadian

October 27, 2010 By

On Monday an odd coincidence occurred to me, that led me to ponder the idea that my trip towards marriage is linked in some cosmic way to my status – my proudly held status – as a Canadian. Some of you already know the story of my engagement, how Gerard prearranged the whole thing with the good folks at Citizenship & Immigration Canada. At my citizenship ceremony, after I had been declared a new Canadian, Gerard got down on one knee and, in front of the judge and all of my fellow new Canadians, he proposed. If you haven’t seen it, check out this video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFslyzgVRFk]

On Monday, my personal life and my life as a Canadian were once again linked, by virtue of the fact that two events happened on that day.  First, we got confirmation of our wedding date. This has been quite a journey that has led to us committing to a date on which we will, after ten years of cohabitation, become husband and wife. Ten minutes later, we went together to my younger son’s school, which was set up as a voting station in the Ontario municipal elections.  And there, for the first time since becoming a Canadian citizen, I exercised my democratic right to vote.

This is a right – and a responsibility – that I take very seriously.  I am mindful of the fact that in parts of the world, I as a woman would not have this right. The brave war veterans, both living and dead, fought for my freedom of choice, for my right to vote. It seems only right that Gerard and I, in recognition of those men and women who sacrificed so much, are having our wedding reception at the Royal Canadian Legion. What better place for us to start this new phase of our lives together.

Soon we are going to start seeing the poppies. In Canada, as in other parts of the world, war veterans hand out poppy lapel pins in exchange for donations. The lapel pins are worn every day until November 11th – Remembrance Day – at which time they are placed at a war memorial.  I find that Canadians are very respectful in their attitude towards our soldiers. The wearing of poppies is done with a great deal of pride and a respect that is almost sacred. When a fallen soldier is returned home, having made the ultimate sacrifice, ordinary citizens suspend their lives to gather at overpasses and on bridges to wave flags as they salute the soldier’s hearse as it travels down the Highway of Heroes.  This video is worth watching. Grab the tissues before you click on the link.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqx-tsg81NM]

Last year, I did something special for Remembrance Day. Along with most of my co-workers, I observed a minute of silence at 11:00 a.m. After that, I solemnly got changed into my running gear, pinned my poppy onto my running jacket, and secured my Metropass in my fuel belt. I went outside into the biting cold, and began my run – a run with a purpose. This run was dedicated to the veterans and the war dead. I ran from the office to the war memorial at Queens Park, where I joined the crowds gathering for a Remembrance Day ceremony.

At the end of the ceremony, I unpinned my poppy and left it at the base of the memorial. I thought of my grandfathers, who were both veterans of World War II. I thought of a friend of mine south of the border, whose son was, at the time, a soldier in Iraq. I thought of the very elderly veteran who had sold me my poppy; I thought of how the lines on his face told a story that I could not begin to comprehend.

Exactly one month after that Remembrance Day, I got my citizenship.  This year, on November 11th, I plan to do what I did last year. Only this time, I will be doing my Remembrance Day run as a Canadian.

Filed Under: remembrance, running Tagged With: , , , ,
post

I Am Canadian

October 27, 2010 By

On Monday an odd coincidence occurred to me, that led me to ponder the idea that my trip towards marriage is linked in some cosmic way to my status – my proudly held status – as a Canadian. Some of you already know the story of my engagement, how Gerard prearranged the whole thing with the good folks at Citizenship & Immigration Canada. At my citizenship ceremony, after I had been declared a new Canadian, Gerard got down on one knee and, in front of the judge and all of my fellow new Canadians, he proposed. If you haven’t seen it, check out this video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFslyzgVRFk]

On Monday, my personal life and my life as a Canadian were once again linked, by virtue of the fact that two events happened on that day.  First, we got confirmation of our wedding date. This has been quite a journey that has led to us committing to a date on which we will, after ten years of cohabitation, become husband and wife. Ten minutes later, we went together to my younger son’s school, which was set up as a voting station in the Ontario municipal elections.  And there, for the first time since becoming a Canadian citizen, I exercised my democratic right to vote.

This is a right – and a responsibility – that I take very seriously.  I am mindful of the fact that in parts of the world, I as a woman would not have this right. The brave war veterans, both living and dead, fought for my freedom of choice, for my right to vote. It seems only right that Gerard and I, in recognition of those men and women who sacrificed so much, are having our wedding reception at the Royal Canadian Legion. What better place for us to start this new phase of our lives together.

Soon we are going to start seeing the poppies. In Canada, as in other parts of the world, war veterans hand out poppy lapel pins in exchange for donations. The lapel pins are worn every day until November 11th – Remembrance Day – at which time they are placed at a war memorial.  I find that Canadians are very respectful in their attitude towards our soldiers. The wearing of poppies is done with a great deal of pride and a respect that is almost sacred. When a fallen soldier is returned home, having made the ultimate sacrifice, ordinary citizens suspend their lives to gather at overpasses and on bridges to wave flags as they salute the soldier’s hearse as it travels down the Highway of Heroes.  This video is worth watching. Grab the tissues before you click on the link.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqx-tsg81NM]

Last year, I did something special for Remembrance Day. Along with most of my co-workers, I observed a minute of silence at 11:00 a.m. After that, I solemnly got changed into my running gear, pinned my poppy onto my running jacket, and secured my Metropass in my fuel belt. I went outside into the biting cold, and began my run – a run with a purpose. This run was dedicated to the veterans and the war dead. I ran from the office to the war memorial at Queens Park, where I joined the crowds gathering for a Remembrance Day ceremony.

At the end of the ceremony, I unpinned my poppy and left it at the base of the memorial. I thought of my grandfathers, who were both veterans of World War II. I thought of a friend of mine south of the border, whose son was, at the time, a soldier in Iraq. I thought of the very elderly veteran who had sold me my poppy; I thought of how the lines on his face told a story that I could not begin to comprehend.

Exactly one month after that Remembrance Day, I got my citizenship.  This year, on November 11th, I plan to do what I did last year. Only this time, I will be doing my Remembrance Day run as a Canadian.

Filed Under: remembrance, running Tagged With: , , , ,
post

Running in the concrete jungle of life

October 22, 2010 By

I suffer from the age-old, clichéd, and frankly boring problem of being a woman with not enough hours in the day. I find myself going to bed ridiculously late and not getting enough sleep, and from time to time I wonder why this is. Am I really that busy or do my time management skills just suck? In analyzing this question, I decided to draw up a rough schedule of what happens in a typical day.

6:00 – 7:15    Wake up, get myself dressed and ready, get James dressed and ready.
7:15 – 7:30    Take James to daycare
7:30 – 8:45    Commute to work
8:45 – 4:45    Earn my keep
4:45 – 6:15    Commute home
6:15 – 7:30    Cook dinner, eat dinner, get kids to eat their dinner
7:30 – 8:00    Supervise George’s homework, read library books with both boys
8:00 – 9:00    Get kids bathed and into bed. Throw load of laundry into washing machine. Make sure car is locked. Make tea.
9:00 – 9:30    Get clothes ready for myself and kids for the following day. Make George’s lunch. Ensure kids’ backpacks contain homework, library books to be returned, forms to be returned to teachers, etc.
9:30 – 10:00    Clean up kitchen. Unload and load dishwasher. Turn dishwasher on and wash any dishes that don’t fit in dishwasher. Get coffee machine ready for the following morning.

What this means is that in the evenings, it’s around ten before I can even sit down at my computer and read emails. This is why I have given up on all of the Facebook games that end in “ville”. I just never have enough time to check on my farm, or my kitchen, or my pet. FarmVille – crops keep dying. FrontierVille – weeds keep growing. PetVille – pet keeps running away to the pound. You get the picture. So now, my Facebook games are the ones that I can spend five minutes or less on, where I won’t suffer penalties if I neglect them for five days.

Do you notice anything missing in the schedule above? Running. Where am I supposed to find time to run? If my daily timetable is anything to go by, my only options are (a) go running in time to be back by six in the morning, or (b) go running after ten at night. Option (b) isn’t really an option to me, because I would be worried about safety.  Something tells me that a woman running alone at that time of night would not be the smartest idea. So I’ve been going with option (a), getting up at 5:00 a.m., being out on the road by 5:15, and trotting back into my driveway by around 6:10 or so.

Except lately, this hasn’t been working out too well. George has been having issues sleeping – a phenomenon very common to children with autism. On any given night, there is roughly a fifty/fifty chance of him – and thereby me – actually getting a full night’s sleep. On the nights he wakes up, he crawls into bed next to me and plays with my hair. No matter how many times I gently move his hands away from my head, they always find their way back there, and he wraps it around his fingers, scrunches it up in his hands, sniffs it, strokes it, on and on and on until he drifts back to sleep. On the good nights, this lasts for half an hour or so. On the bad nights, it will go on for two or three hours.

It doesn’t matter how dedicated a runner you are. If you have a small child keeping you awake from 2:30 until 4:30, it is going to be near-impossible for you get up at 5:00, go running, and then put in a full day of work. It’s not even as if George’s nocturnal adventures are an occasional thing.  For the last month or so, it has been happening two or three nights a week.

It is hammering me, and I am increasingly stressed out by my inability to find time to run. Not running is not an option. Running late at night when I feel vulnerable is not an option. Running first thing in the morning when I’ve had no sleep is not an option.  So I have to get creative.

To solve the problem, I started by considering each run individually. I run five days a week, with Mondays and Fridays off. The weekend runs are not a problem: even if I have to get up early for those, I have the option of vegetating in front of the TV for the rest of the day (true, I’d have two kids jumping on me, but still). That takes care of four days of the week right there. On Wednesdays I go running with a group after work (kills my Wednesday evening schedule but I can live with that once a week), and I’ve worked out that I could do my Tuesday runs on a treadmill at the gym at lunchtime.

All of a sudden, the problem is a lot more manageable. Now, all I have to worry about are the Thursday runs. I’m still not too sure what I will do about those, but I’ll figure something out, either by just living with the early-mornings-after-no-sleep once a week or by doing some kind of creative reorganization to my schedule.

It just goes to show: when the running bug bites you, somehow you find a way to fit it all in.

Filed Under: life, running Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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